1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to word processing systems, and more particularly to a system for the computer translation, editing and print out of English text from outlines or notes generated by the use of a shorthand machine.
2. Description of the Prior Art
This Transcriber System is an improved word processing system for use by a secretary in a general office environment, or by a court reporter.
The staff of a typical office routinely engages in the production of letters, memoranda, and reports. The original words may be dictated to a secretary, recorded on one of a variety of magnetic tape recorders or written in longhand, and given to a secretary for rough draft typing. The draft, thus produced, is then changed and/or corrected and resubmitted to the secretary who types the memorandum in final form. Final corrections or changes, if required, result in the possibility of a third typing.
A similar process is initiated during the taking of notes by a court reporter during court proceedings, or by a reporter at any meeting requiring a transcription of the verbal record. In this case, a reporter records the verbal proceedings on a shorthand machine which results in a series of paper tape notes. These notes are typed into rough draft form by a trained note reader, proofread by the reporter, and typed into a final transcript. Alternatively, a reporter, reading from the original paper tape notes, may dictate the information onto magnetic tape which would then be typed by a typist who need not be trained in the reading of the shorthand machine notes. The rough draft thus produced is proofread by the reporter and the typist makes final corrections. In this case the typist need not be capable of reading the original shorthand machine notes, but more of the reporter's time is required for the dictation step. A third method of reducing the court proceedings from paper tape note form to a final transcript is for the reporter to type directly from the paper tape notes. Of course, this requires more of the reporter's time, time that he cannot use recording additional original notes.
In all of the above cases the reduction of verbal proceedings to final transcripts or memoranda is a time-consuming and costly process, and many aids have been developed to reduce the time and work content of these final transcripts and/or memoranda.
One variety of hardware system used to speed the creation of memoranda is the "word processing system." In this case as the typist or note reader creates a rough draft, the encoded information is simultaneously recorded in some kind of magnetic memory. Thereafter, when errors or corrections are required to be made to the original dictation, as shown on the rough draft, only those parts of the recorded information need be changed or corrected. This is normally done by directing the attention of the word processing system to that particular word or sentence that requires change, and then changing that word or sentence in memory. Finally, the word processing system can type out the entire document in its corrected form automatically without intervention by the system operator. In this way the entire document need be typed only once. Thereafter, only corrections and additions need be processed. See U.S. Pat. No. 3,786,429 for a representative system. It can thus be seen that savings of labor is achieved since correct portions of the original transcript do not need to be retyped.
A more efficient form of word processing system is equipped with a Cathode Ray Tube or other device, which, under operator control, can display any portion of the original typed draft. With this system, the operator can access any page of the transcript and correct or change any portion thereof. Finally, when the entire transcript is in its final form, it may be typed out automatically by the equipment. This system is more flexible and more efficient than the equivalent word processing system without a soft display in that all parts of the transcript may be viewed and corrected rapidly and in any order. In contrast, a word processing system without a display must type out each page in order to present visual information to the operator.
In either of the above two versions of word processing systems, a sophisticated controller is required to implement all of the display and editing functions, which must either be a large and complex set of digital circuits or a small dedicated processor.
It can be seen that the above-described systems have increased the efficiency with which a rough draft can be reduced to a final transcript or memorandum. However, the work content of the translation from verbal information to the original rough draft has not been reduced by these systems. More specifically, a rough draft cannot be produced at voice speeds. Either information is dictated to a secretary at voice speeds, then typed into a final draft at typing speed which is considerably slower, or the dictation is verbally recorded on a magnetic tape, and the typist produces a rough draft from this tape, again at typing speed.
In the case of transcribing court proceedings, the time required to produce a transcript of the day's court proceedings using standard court reporter techniques and processes is unacceptable by present standards. Several weeks are commonly required to produce court transcripts and trials are frequently hampered by the delay. On the other hand, lawyers frequently require that transcripts be produced the same day, so that the day's proceedings may be studied with a view toward preparing for the next day's appearance in court. The existing process can be used to develop transcripts but at the cost of using a team of reporters and typists which increases the cost of transcripts significantly.
What is needed, then, in both the office and courtroom environment is a method of reducing a verbal transaction to a rough draft at voice speeds and at lower costs in terms of work input as well as time required for production.
To produce this result computer-aided systems have been proposed. One such system is produced by Steno Comp, Inc. and comprises a standard shorthand machine fitted with a magnetic tape recorder which will magnetically record the stenotype notes, and a computer containing a special program for converting these magnetically recorded notes into a rough draft. See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,557,927 and 3,892,915.
A standard shorthand machine has a special set of keys for recording alphanumeric data on a continuous strip of paper tape. The keyboard is set up so that a plurality of keys can be struck simultaneously and the information is coded so that the operator can record information at the syllable or word level on each stroke. The resultant alphanumeric information printed on the paper tape is coded in such a fashion that it is not understandable as English, but it can be translated into English by one trained in note reading. This is the standard note-taking process that is normally seen in the courtroom environment. In the case of a computer-aided translation, the identical alphanumeric information is simultaneously recorded on a magnetic tape which may then be transported to a computer. The computer will then act as an equivalent of the note reader in the usual process.
The computer translation of these magnetic notes is not a simple conversion since the sounds recorded are not one-to-one equivalents of the words as they will finally be typed in the rough draft. This is because there are many words which sound and are recorded identically but which must be spelled differently, such as "meat" and "meet". Additionally, spaces between words are not recorded in the original notes so that the computer has no indication of when one word stops and the next word starts. Furthermore, there are a large number of idiosyncracies and variable stroking patterns associated with each individual reporter or secretary operating the shorthand machine. For instance, every shorthand machine operator will typically hit extra keys under some circumstances, fail to hit other keys under certain circumstances, and will invariably have his/her own personal set of brief forms and abbreviations which he/she uses habitually. In addition, each particular subject being discussed will have a large number of technical words associated with the subject and will contain the proper nouns corresponding to the names of the people and places pertinent to the subject matter. It is because of these and other problems associated with the raw notes produced by an operator that the computer translation of these notes becomes an almost unmanageable problem.
One commercial process requires that, along with his magnetically recorded stenotype notes, the reporter should prepare and submit to the system a key-punched mini-glossary of idiosyncratic strokes, proper names and unusual spellings, which the system temporarily integrates into its main translation facility. Of course, other forms of ambiquities based on idiosyncracies and errors of the notetaker cannot be compensated for and the resultant rough draft produced by this process will contain errors. These are corrected by the reporter who edits the first draft output, keypunching his corrections and keying them to the text by line and word numbers. The resulting correction deck along with the first draft output is again submitted to the computer which applies the corrections and produces a final draft of the text. This process may seem cumbersome but it does in fact produce a transcript of a court proceeding more quickly than it would otherwise have been produced using the ordinary transcription process.
To minimize the number of errors in the rough draft generated by the idiosyncracies of each court reporter, each reporter is provided with his own "dictionary" which each reporter can use to store any words that are peculiar to his recording. Thus, if over a period of months, a notetaker realizes that he/she has a tendency to stroke a particular set of words incorrectly in the same way or uses abbreviations that are not standard to notetakers in general, he/she can record these idiosyncrasies in his/her personal dictionary and the computer will invoke this personal dictionary when translating the particular reporter's notes. However, there always will be an irreducible number of pure random errors which cannot be compensated for by the computer and therefore there always will be an error correction process involving keypunching corrections keyed to the text line and word numbers. A result of this is that the process will always include at least two submissions to the computer; the first being a submission of the original notes and the second being a submission of the correction desk. This process, although faster than the ordinary transcript production process, is still costly and time-consuming. What is required is a computer controlled system available at the site where the recording is being done, either the office building or the court house, to which the notes can be submitted, and a system which will display to the system operator an instant rough draft and be available for instantaneous edition and production of the final transcript.